Colorado Mountain Boondocking Photos
Howdy all! This week I've been located in the beautiful Sawatch mountains west of Salida, CO. The area is spectacular and I had to share a couple photos! I have to admit, I am attempting to learn...
Forum Discussion
4runnerguy wrote:JFNM wrote:RedRocket204 wrote:
BTW, you are very close to an IMBA Epic 100 MTB trail known as Monarch Crest.
Great tip - thanks again! My plan was to ride a good bit of Rainbow Trail south of Salida today and then Monarch Crest as soon as I can arrange a shuttle. However; a cold front came thru last night and it is fairly cool (40F at 8am) with a dusting of snow up high. So, I may delay today's ride - yes, I've turned into a bit of a cold pansy!
Rode the lower part of the Rainbow Trail on Thursday. Parked on US 285 and rode up the Silver Creek Lakes road about eight miles and caught the bottom 9.5 miles of the Rainbow Trail. Have ridden the Monarch Crest several times and it is breathtaking (in more ways than one), but the bottom part of the Rainbow Trail gives one an ear to ear grin. In some ways I enjoy it more as a ride by itself as I'm often pretty tired by the time I get there after riding the Crest.
I'm assuming you've hit the S Mountain and Methodist Mountain Trails by now (maybe we passed each other in the last couple of days?). Of course there's the Midland Trail above Buena Vista. They've rerouted some of that trail in the last year taking out some of the places that had gotten severely eroded in the past.
This afternoon we rode the dirt road above Cottonwood Lake just to enjoy the aspen. Nothing technical, but way beautiful. Steep enough and high enough in altitude to get the heart rate up. About nine or ten miles from Cottonwood Lake to the end of the road. (9600' to 11,900')
Another easy but beautiful (mostly) dirt road ride is south out of St. Elmo up to Hancock along an old railroad grade. Great aspen along this route unless the wind has blown them all off. Eventually you get to the trailhead for the Alpine Tunnel. Easy singletrack but very interesting. I understand there is a singletrack that continues beyond the Alpine Tunnel and loops back to Tincup Pass, but haven't done that yet.
Ken,
Oh the places you go and the things you see............ if we could just get you to use a camera or a phone to share those things your eyes see....
The Collegiates this time of year are Heaven,
Maybe someday you will take a few pictures, sure would be nice.
Just saying,
